Thursday, July 16, 2009

Self-regulation will work no better with financiersthan it has with teenagers.

Clarification: Cheney's secret CIA project was simply to send hit squads around the world putting 'bullets in heads’. Like the Predator drone project, only up close and personal. The claim is that "the plan was never carried out." What sort of odds do you give me on that, Pinocchio?

Molasses in January: The Federal Reserve reports a record 13.6% y/y decline in industrial output last month. Business is slow.

Blue Dog Math: A bunch of Democrats - who would really like to be Republicans - object to the health care bill because we can't afford it. The cost to cover 97% of the population might be a $100 billion a year range. The Bush tax cuts cost $1.8 trillion over a decade. Easy come, easy go.

Tea Leaves: Joining the Baltic Dry Index and Connex usage reports are tallies of Railcar Loadings - which also continue to decline, down 22% y/y.

Back to Nature: The San Joaquin Valley's irrigated fields do not grow much without the irrigation. Owing to the drought, half a million acres now lay fallow and thousands of farmhands have lost their paltry incomes - in a state with no money to help them.

Take That! The US Navy has deployed a destroyer off the Georgian coast for naval "exercises", if putting your thumb on your nose and going Nahhhh! towards Russia can be called an exercise.

Good Hands: Banks may impose a $35 fee for using your debit card's "overdraft" feature. If you go over by $5 it will cost you $35 - if you make it good within a month. That's 700% interest in a month. Good thing Americans can't do math.

No Shame, #734 : Exiled GM CEO Wagoner, having run one of America's greatest companies into the ground is walking away with medical insurance, lifetime salary, various other little goodies totaly $8.2 million, Which is $8,000,000 more than most of the departed UAW workers are getting.

Vice President Joe Biden told people attending an AARP town hall meeting that unless the Democrat-supported health care plan becomes law the nation will go bankrupt and that the only way to avoid that fate is for the government to spend more money.

“And folks look, AARP knows and the people working here today know, the president knows, and I know, that the status quo is simply not acceptable,” Biden said at the event on Thursday in Alexandria, Va. “It’s totally unacceptable. And it’s completely unsustainable. Even if we wanted to keep it the way we have it. It can’t do it financially.”

“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said.

“Well, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’” Biden said. “The answer is yes, I’m telling you.”

Our Motto

Keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.